At the state of the art, commonly known machinery exists for processing rails for the construction of rail track switching.
On these machines, different systems are used to lock the rail during processing thereof by means of a tool.
The oldest type of locking system is a mechanical/hydraulic system (manual brackets or hydraulically operated automatic brackets) and the most recent is a magnetic type. The mechanical/hydraulic systems have the peculiarity of offering very high anchoring forces, but—conversely—prevent good evacuation of machining chips due to the presence of oil distribution hoses and mechanical structures constituting bracket anchorage points or rail support points.
In said equipment, there is a high consumption of hydraulic oil (due to leaks) and maintenance is required almost continuously. Furthermore, the mechanical/hydraulic system poses the disadvantage of generating an anchoring force which is concentrated in individual points distributed along the rail. This may induce vibrations during processing (resulting in increased tool wear).
The magnetic systems, consisting mainly of two magnetic zones positioned in a mutually orthogonal fashion, anchor the rail in the lower part of the base section (or ‘foot’) and one of the two sides of the core section (i.e. the vertical portion connecting the foot and the head, better known as the ‘web’).
These systems do not feature pipelines or recesses, therefore they offer the possibility of excellent evacuation of chips generated during processing. This improves the cleaning and set-up operations for new parts to be processed.
Furthermore, the magnetic systems provide a continuous anchoring force along the entire length of the rail, thereby increasing system rigidity and reducing vibrations.
One disadvantage of the magnetic systems is that the anchoring forces generated are normally lower than those offered by traditional mechanical systems.
With said anchoring systems, therefore, it is necessary to reduce tool speed and travel (feed rate), especially when the processing concerns the rail head area and the forces are acting thereupon in the opposite direction to the abutment and magnetic anchorage surface. This is to prevent detachment of the rail from the abutment and anchorage point.
In other cases recourse is made to the use of mechanical systems (manual brackets), as an aid the magnetic ones, to prevent detachment. Nevertheless, said approach impairs efficiency, as the machine tool operator has to suspend processing operations in order to manually adjust the positioning/repositioning of the manual brackets if the presence of the latter interferes with the passage of the tool.
The object of the present invention is to provide a rail processing device and method which is improved compared with the prior art.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a rail processing device and method which reduces rail processing times.
This and other objects are achieved by means of a rail processing device and method according to the technical teachings of the claims annexed hereto.